Used Kids Records, along with other Columbus record stores, will celebrate Record Store Day Black Friday this year.
Credit: Samantha Harden | Lantern Reporter
Black Friday, while best known for extreme sales from large corporate brands, is also celebrated by local business owners; notably, independently owned record shops.
Record Store Day was created in 2007 as a means of generating awareness about independently owned record stores around the country via releasing exclusive vinyls, CDs and other promotional products just one day every year, according to Record Store Day’s website.
Just a few years later in 2010, Record Store Day coordinated its first Black Friday event — also known as RSD Black Friday — which provided local record shops with a second day full of exclusive releases.
Columbus record stores Used Kids Records, Records Per Minute, Lost Weekend Records, Spoonful Records and Magnolia Thunderpussy will all participate in this year’s Black Friday event, selling limited amounts of exclusive vinyl and CD releases beginning at 8 a.m. Friday.
Tara Ryan-Gallagher, Used Kids Records’ marketing, communications and booking manager, said Black Friday has always signaled the beginning of holiday shopping since its inception. It also marks the time of year when companies go from being “in the red” — losing money in their day-to-day operations — to being “in the black” — generating enough profit to cover operating expenses — and local record stores are no exception, she said.
“Record Store Day’s Black Friday presents an opportunity for independent record stores to have titles exclusive to them, meaning people will spend their money locally instead of with larger corporations,” Ryan-Gallagher said. “With the holidays around the corner, it’s important to keep our local businesses in mind.”
Jack Stover, owner of Records Per Minute, said Black Friday is more important to local businesses than most consumers realize.
“It’s a big revenue driver for independent shops,” Stover said. “A lot of larger corporate businesses tend to have sales that last like three months and they drag it out, whereas a lot of retail stores, it really is about that week or that weekend.”
Stover said the community-wide event is also a chance to bring a lot of people together.
“Being an independent shop, it’s such a community, and everyone’s coming in and seeing a lot of people [and] that might be the only time they get to see each other that year,” Stover said. “A lot of people attend and hang out and see friends they know and it becomes a big social event as well for the community.”
Stover said RSD Black Friday also provides an opportunity for collectors to find vinyls they have been searching for a long time.
“It’s another celebration for collectors with previously limited, extremely hard-to-get titles and a lot of reissues that can cost a lot of money if you are to buy the originals,” Stover said. “It gives people an opportunity to get some of these long-sought-after titles.”
Ryan-Gallagher said she suspects singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo’s newest release, her sophomore album “GUTS,” will be one of the most popular records highlighted at this year’s event.
“Rodrigo is probably going to have some of the more hardcore people getting here early,” Ryan-Gallagher said.
Rodrigo’s exclusive vinyl release, “GUTS: the secret tracks,” includes the four hidden tracks — titled “obsessed,” “scared of my guitar,” “stranger” and “girl i’ve always been” — originally included separately on the four different versions of the standard album, which were sold on her website.
According to the Record Store Day website, the exclusive release is pressed on limited-edition “opaque deep purple” and is “etched with a butterfly” on the B side of the vinyl.
Other releases Ryan-Gallagher said she suspects will be popular come from The Jonas Brothers, Noah Kahan, Kim Petras and Post Malone, along with Eric Carr, Joni Mitchell, Grateful Dead and The Doors, who tend to have special releases every Record Store Day and RSD Black Friday.
For the full list of releases and information about participating stores, visit the Record Store Day website.
